With controversies emerging about actions taken by the Muncy Township Board of Supervisors, who took office last month, some officials say their call for transparency seems disingenuous when meetings have been conducted improperly and without advance notice for the public to attend.

“You can speak about transparency all you want, but if you’re not conducting yourself and adhering to that yourself, then I think you lack some credibility there,” said Jason Fink, president and CEO of the WIlliamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce.

Fink cited a resident at a recent meeting of the supervisors who pointed out the lack of transparency by the board, “even noting the fact that, when they were doing votes, that there were no seconds to motions that were being made, which invalidated all their actions because they didn’t properly administer their meetings.”

“We hear a lot from at least Terri Lauchle, as township supervisor, that she keeps speaking about transparency. However, we’re not seeing that, and we’re not seeing a willingness to actually do the work that is required as a township supervisor in terms of basic things,” he said.

Actions taken by the board are raising alarms about land development projects in the township, particularly ones, at the former Lycoming Mall property, including Bass Pro, and the Chick-fil-A build at Lycoming Crossings Mall.

Fink contends that the board is putting up “unnecessary roadblocks for developments that people are trying to advance within the community.”

“You know there’s a new board of supervisors, and completely understand the fact that they have their focus as a new board, but you’ve got just one new individual that’s there, and things have pretty much ground to a halt with regards to anything getting acted upon, just having been at their most recent meeting and seeing how that was conducted,” Fink said.

Many have expressed their concerns, in particular with documents that are needing to be signed off by the supervisors — ones that were already approved by both the planning commission and their engineer.

“They’ve already been advised by their solicitor that they are good to sign, and the supervisors have yet to sign them,” he said.

During the meeting, the developer for the Lycoming Crossings project told the township’s board about his concerns that the township was not going to be acting on his request for a reduction in their bond holding, which is standard procedure based upon developments, Fink said.

“The contractor will come in, they’ll perform work, and that’ll be reviewed by the township engineer. The township and the engineer will sign off on it, and the bond will be reduced by the amount of work that had been accomplished,” he explained.

“Unfortunately, the township has yet to act on this request that was initially submitted in December, and Charlie said that there are penalties that come into play, and if it doesn’t get resolved soon, it not only involves penalties, but it also gives the client the ability to walk away. So that means that Chick-fil-A could say, ‘Hey, you know what, we’re going to go someplace else,'” he said.

Fink said that there are also concerns about FamVest, the owner and developer of the former Lycoming Mall property now known as The District. Bass Pro is scheduled to open there next summer and is working on a schedule for development.

“It’s a much bigger development than a Chick-fil-A. It’s going to take a lot longer there. They were targeting being able to get construction started later this spring, early summer,” Fink said.

When asked if there had been any direct communication between him and the board of supervisors or FamVest and the board, Fink said that the board would not meet one-on-one to try to resolve these issues, because they felt it would not be transparent to meet out of the public meeting setting.

“They will not meet one-on-one because they cite transparency as the reason for that refusal.

FamVest has also reached out,” Fink said, adding that they had received an email saying the board would not meet with them because of transparency issues.

Fink noted that is not typically the way things are done.

“The other thing is, right now, at this point, FamVest really doesn’t need any individual meetings with the township. They just need the supervisors to function the way that they’re supposed to, based on code for the township, and also follow their procedures that are already in place. When land development plans are submitted, those are supposed to be reviewed by the township planning commission along with their codes inspection, and all they need to do is let the process move forward, and if it’s approved, then they need to sign appropriate documents at this point in time,” he said.

“At their meeting, they said that they were going to be putting on hold a temporary administrative hold for storm water and subdivision processing, which they were advised was deemed illegal two decades ago by the state Supreme Court, when a township in York County tried to do something very similar, and yet they still voted to put that in there,” he said.

“At the end of the meeting, when asked for clarification on that in particular, because it was very general, they did not call out what type of property zoning requirements were involved, whether it was residential, whether it was industrial (or) commercial. There was no classification. It was just broad and general. I asked them if that was the case, because that’s what they voted upon. It was the motion and what they approved,” he said.

Fink said that after some back and forth, Lauchle, who is the board chair, said that the motion pertained specifically to FamVest and the Bass Pro project, which he contended raises concerns about objectivity.

“Terri in particular has publicly stated on her social media, along with stating it at meetings, I’ve heard from others that she does not want to see redevelopment there. She wants to see a cornfield,” Fink said.

The tax revenue for the Muncy School District alone, which had been just under $900,000 when the mall was fully functional, has decreased to about $150,000 now.